THE DARK MOTHER _BOOKS BY WALDO FRANK_ THE UNWELCOME MAN THE DARK MOTHER THE ART OF THE VIEUX COLOMBIER OUR AMERICA THE DARK MOTHER _A NOVEL_ BY WALDO FRANK _She is Flesh moving through Flesh She is Spirit_ BONI AND LIVERIGHT PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Copyright, 1920, by BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC. _Printed in the United States of America_ TO MARGARET NAUMBURG CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I 1 II 24 III 29 IV 49 V 102 VI 123 VII 162 VIII 175 IX 197 X 213 XI 252 XII 265 XIII 313 XIV 343 THE DARK MOTHER I The air moved toward the mountain: the waves and the trees and the earth moved toward the mountain. All the world moved gently upward toward the mountain like a Tide. The mountain moved downward toward earth, spilled water and spread trees in it. A full-grown boy sat low in a canoe with his hands in the sharp water, and let it drift with the wind. The wind ceased: the wavelets stopped marching up the backs of his hands, there was silence. The boy lay back in his craft that lay in the water, sleepily and tamed by the wind’s absence. His mind drowsed but in its sleep walked forth. The mountain became a mood of contemplation. A cloud rose over the mountain faster than the moon. There was to be no moon. Away on all sides of the lake woods murmured. The lake was silence in wide swaying murmur. The woods rolled purple and tumbled black: they mounted atop each other to stark eminence against the sky: they huddled downward into breathing valleys and the suspense of meadows lying with wide eyes. The woods were shredded by noisy rivers: they stumbled over rocks, fell away. The sky dipped and the earth found it: the sky too leaped. Leaping away it took the landside with it. All that was left of trees and water and wide-eyed fields was haze, like a longing vision. Within this lay the boy who was nearly a man. He was the tiny thrust of a flaming outer world on the lake’s hard luster. He was immersed in depths that made him see new stars. He lifted himself and began to paddle. He paddled with clear brow against night.